Milwaukee brace today.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the efficacy of the Milwaukee brace and its psychological impact and to define whether its use is still acceptable today by a review of literature.

METHOD: A bibliographic search on PubMed and Medline database using keywords, 'scoliosis and brace' was performed.

RESULTS: Milwaukee brace 23-hours wearing protocol was most effective for the treatment of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. However, 23-hours wearing protocol has some drawbacks, and even the patients using thoraco-lumbo-sacral orthosis wore their brace only for around 60% of the time prescribed as their wearing protocol. Our Milwaukee brace part-time wearing treatment was effective, and by its use combined with physical therapy, better results than the natural history were obtained.

CONCLUSION: With part-time wearing protocol, the Milwaukee brace can survive today as a treatment option for idiopathic scoliosis with thoracic curve or double curve.